Tag Archives: kindle

This thought kept me awake last night and finally, I had to get up and try to clear my head.

The news last night was so unsettling. I’m not shy to say that Mr. Trump was not the person I saw leading our country, but I don’t see the senselessness of the destruction that took place (and I’m afraid to look at what has happened overnight). This man is who was elected and I PRAY for him to be MORE than I expect from him. I PRAY for him to turn my thoughts around and be MORE kind than some of the things I’ve seen and heard. PLEASE let him be MORE, because for him to fail… well, the only way I can even think to say it is this…

IF HE FAILS WE ARE SCREWED.

Let this new day be one of the HOPE Mr. Trump’s successor had us think about for our future. I, for one, don’t want to see a world without HOPE.

And so…

On that note… Going through chaos to bring change is what I am praying for. I have some changes ahead that I HOPE AND PRAY will bring some peace of mind back to Gene and I. I’m making a work change that will bring me closer to home, but more importantly, closer to Gene. I’m currently spending about three hours in the car round trip each day. Soon it will be less than an hour. I never thought about the commute time as a WHOLE when I took my current job. I will say – because I try to find a POSITIVE in everything – I’ve learned a lot in those hours each work day for the past five months – a lot about me… You can’t spend that much time stuck in traffic and NOT have time to think. 🙂 Some days its been prayerful thoughts – no one can make that commute without praying! Some of my thoughts have been about the future, and some have been hopeful thoughts that “ALL GREAT CHANGES ARE PRECEDED BY CHAOS,” and that something better is coming.

I am ready.

I’ve learned a lot about people in these past months – first of all: LEAVE FOR WORK FIVE MINUTES EARLIER PEOPLE! But really… I’ve learned that people can become family and I will miss the family I’ve made at this job. Five months isn’t really a long time – like a 1/3 of a year – but it’s long enough to learn who is good – and I like to surround myself with GOOD people – life would suck if there were only assholes. Write that down – it’s profound! Ha ha ha! I pray that these people – this family – stay in my friend bucket.

As the chaos passes, I pray that I can get back to Andy first, and then to Josh and Chellie, and whoever else pops in my head. Thank you for waiting for me.

I think I shall quote Matthew McConaughey from his 2014 Oscar acceptance speech and THANK my friend Judy Gasperini for sharing it with me…

“There’s a few things — about three things, to my count, that I need each day. One of them is something to look up to; another is something to look forward to; and another is someone to chase.

Now, first off I want to thank God because that’s who I look up. He’s graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand. He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the late Charlie Laughton who said, “When you got God, you got a friend, and that friend is you.”

To my family — that’s who and what I look forward to:

To my father, who I know he’s up there right now with a big pot of gumbo; he’s got a lemon meringue pie over there; he’s probably in his underwear, and he’s got a cold can of Miller Lite and he’s dancing right now. To you dad — you taught what it means to be a man.

To my mother, who’s here tonight, who taught me and my two older brothers — demanded — that we respect ourselves. And what we in turn learned was then we were better able to respect others. Thank you for that, Mama.”

To my wife, Camila, and my kids, Levi, Vida, and Mr. Stone, the courage and significance you give me every day I go out the door is unparalleled. You are the four people in my life that I want to make the most proud of me. Thank you.

And to my hero, that’s who I chase. Now when I was 15 years old, I had a very important person in my life come to me and say “Who’s your hero?” And I said, “I don’t know. I gotta think about that. Give me a couple of weeks.” I come back two weeks later — this person comes up and says “Who’s your hero?” I said, “I thought about it. You know who it is?” I said, “It’s me in 10 years.”

So I turned 25. Ten years later, that same person comes to me and goes, “So are you a hero?” And I was like, “Not even close. No, no, no.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because my hero’s me at 35.” So you see every day, every week, every month, and every year of my life, my hero’s always 10 years away. I’m never gonna be my hero. I’m not gonna attain that. I know I’m not, and that’s just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.

So, to any of us, whatever those things are, whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to, and whoever it is we’re chasing — to that I say, “Amen.” To that I say, “Alright, alright, alright.” To that I say “Just keep living.”

I know it has been a long time since I’ve added any thoughts here – my head was full of too many other things that I couldn’t think about what to share with you. Lots of changes in my work life in the past few months and I am prayerful about more to come. If you follow along on Facebook, you know that we have had some (too many) trials with Gene’s health lately as well.

I’m hoping that with a new year the opportunities for me to have ME TIME will be greater. I am ready for some peace and calm.

I can tell you that I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like, but…

I have a final story from Andy that I am working on. He came to me and said “this isn’t finished,” and shared some thoughts with me 🙂 I love when he does that! We are a ways off, but TIMELESS is coming.

And… There is another story that needs some major tweaks and love that I hope to get out this year – the title is AFTER THE FALL, and I hope that you will fall in love with Josh and Chellie’s story.

I will be better about stopping in and sharing updates and maybe teases with you.

I hope 2017 is filled with love and good things, and that the challenges you face are manageable – that’s what I’m shooting for… managing my challenges.

Sometimes ‘reflection’ begins a different path. Sometimes the path is a new road, sometimes the same road remains but something has to change.

I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know somethings need to change. If it doesn’t ‘bring me joy’ – it’s gone. We are simplifying. I’m not exactly sure what that means, but we’re opening closets and drawers and considering the things we find. DO THEY BRING JOY?

What about you? Are their “bags and boxes, drawers and shelves” that are calling you to give them attention? DO IT. Touch it – if it doesn’t bring you joy – get rid of it. Someone else may find GREAT JOY in it – you could be giving someone JOY that they’ve been lacking because you held on to it.

I looked in the closet in the office and found a box with the drafts for each book. The boxes contained notes from “you” telling me how a story touched you… I thought about it – do I really need to keep that?

DUH??? Those boxes make me happy – they’re staying in the closet 🙂

I’ll keep you posted in what things brought us joy and what is on it’s way OUT!

I’ve been cleaning out our office (this is a HUGE undertaking and we aren’t done yet!). I’ve scanned a bunch of pics and added them to Facebook, and have enjoyed all the comments. As I went through a box of pics I was overcome with memories…

It was a box that I’d packed when my mom died and didn’t have a chance to go through – all these years later, I pulled that box out. School pictures, cards, her work ID, newspaper clippings from things in our past… and a love letter from my dad to celebrate their 26th anniversary. Spiral notebook, lined paper with words from my dad’s heart. I felt the love. I knew they loved each other, but this was special and I will treasure it always. He ended it with an expression that I have used in my books – not knowing they were his words too.

“I love you always, all ways” <3

That one piece of paper made the bags and boxes I’ve been going through worth every moment it took to get there.

Yesterday was a day of reflection. The morning began with talk of time in our morning huddle where we gather to talk about all things work before we begin the day. Once a month or so we have to do it earlier than usual because of a meeting that follows. On those early Fridays the group is considerably smaller. We always begin with a prayer or words of encouragement of some kind. It started with just the idea that time is precious and it seems that the more of it that passes the faster it goes. And then the talk drifted to LIVING in the time that we have. It was good. It was good to share and hear others talk about time.

When I taught Weight Watchers and someone would say that didn’t have time – to prepare meals or exercise or whatever – I’d tell them that sometimes you have to MAKE TIME. We’re all busy. We all have too many things going on at once, but if it’s important enough there will be time. I admit that I’m not good at time management. But I try to make time for what’s important. I don’t make enough time for myself sometimes, but I’m working on that.

Last night I realized that I don’t always make enough time for family and friends. Gene and I love to sit on the back porch and have happy hour. Our view of the lake is so nice and it was pleasant enough (temp) that we had dinner out there and we talked. I always love this time with him. I guess the talk about time made me emotional and we were talking about my mom. I posted previously that (9 years ago) her brother died of cancer and eighteen days later my mom passed away, and if you know me, you know that butterflies are of great significance to me since that time. As Gene and I were talking two yellow butterflies flitted past the porch. I posted that on facebook with a pic of my mom and her brother, and a moment later my phone rang. My cousin (whose dad was my mom’s brother) called and we talked for almost an hour. I haven’t seen her in too long and I realized that it’s bad because she’s not that far away – an hour or so, but because we’re busy we haven’t figured out how to make that work. It’ll be a priority now…

So now that I’ve rambled on…

MAKE TIME. Make time for yourself. Make time for your family. Make time for your friends. Learn the work/life balance and make time to do what you need to do so that you aren’t scrambling trying to do what you HAVE TO DO. Tomorrow isn’t a day of the week and it’s not promised…

It’s keeping me awake, so I had to share. I don’t know if it’s the same for other writers, but when my characters talk to me, I can’t sleep. This one will be different for me – more on that later… but Lulu’s loves are talking to me.

She’s a woman now, but the story starts with her younger life and progresses through learning love, how to love and how to let go, and the emotional roller coaster ride that goes with it. She’s learning about Lulu too.

We’ve all bee through Lulu’s Loves in some way – our journey may be different, but we’ve all had a journey becoming the women (and men) that we are…

I love this time of day – it’s (usually) quiet. This morning Cali is rambunctious – part of why I’m up this early on this specific Saturday 🙂 She has this stuffed chicken (that I recently found under something from when Kooky was alive) that she loves. I wonder sometimes if it’s because of Kooky <3 but she carries it around and “talks”. This morning, she “talks” and then bats it across the room to go get it and “talk some more”. So glad she came into our life…

I have a heavy heart this week. Sometimes a moment brings a memory that opens the dam to a flood of emotions. That happened twice this week. I didn’t like it either time – the flood forces you to stop and think about something you may not want to remember – to push back feelings you don’t want to feel. As I write this now, I think this post is going to help Lulu along her journey – that’s how my stories happen; something in my life gives me an in…

Without giving much detail (because I can’t) I’ll tell you that yesterday I had to sit down with someone to talk about what they NEEDED to do for their father. Our hearts are so selfish sometimes that we can’t see the big picture. We see what we want to see, and we don’t want to see (or think about) losing anyone. They were looking for help for his future… they already knew the answer, someone (more than one someone) else had told them what they needed to do, but their selfish heart made them keep searching.

It’s hard to think about going forward without someone who means so much to you. I know – most of you do too. And this is a hard time in my life for this to have happened. Nine years ago this week, my uncle (my mom’s brother) passed away from cancer. Eighteen days later, my mom passed away. Another memory earlier in the week already had that ‘anniversary’ in my mind, and then this meeting brought it forefront and I couldn’t push it aside anymore. So I drew from those emotions…

I listened as two sisters cried telling me their hopes. I listened. They were so emotional that I had a hard time holding it together. One was more rational, the other was a mess. I listened. I explained my work response to their situation, and then they asked what I would do.

I prayed.

So I told them. Now, all I can do is pray that they do what’s right for their father. They told me (and I will cherish these words) that they appreciated my honesty and compassion. Honesty and compassion… Maybe the words I spoke were the ones they needed to hear. I hope that I never have to do that again – in my personal or professional life – but if I do I will speak from my heart.

If I can give YOU one gift from this post today I will tell you to get your things in order. Tomorrow isn’t promised. Know what you want. Know what your loved ones want. Know your plan going forward whether you’re forty, sixty, or eighty – let someone know so you aren’t scrambling trying to figure it out when it’s too late and running on emotions. No one wants to think about that, but it’s going to happen. Do what’s right for them… ASK THEM. Sit down and do this. Do it together. Sit down with your parents and do it.